Center celebrates 13th year in theatre

By Rebecca Petersen | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, September 29, 2007

Hmmm....something’s familiar about this dat: Sept. 29. It was the day we moved back into the theater in 1995. I remember it well — The Lincoln Avenue Fine Arts Festival, battling with wind and rain and chilly temperatures.

I remember Jeff Zachmann wandering around in a garbage bag and handing out more garbage bags to artists and attendees and talking about selling raincoats and umbrellas in the future.

I remember board members and volunteers putting in theater seats as fast as we were selling them for the concert that night with singer/songwriter Chuck Suchy and cowboy poet Rodney Nelson.

So have things really changed all that much since Sept. 29th, 1995? Maybe a little.

But, there are similarities, too. For instance, this weekend we may not be showcasing the Lincoln Avenue Fine Arts festival. Instead we’ve replaced it with The Fergus Falls Area Art Crawl (all indoors in galleries and artists’ studios). It started yesterday and continues through the day today until 5 p.m. Stop by A Center for the Arts and pick up your map and brochure and visit all of these great locations.

We still find ways to be resourceful while dealing with the natural elements that challenge us on a weekly basis — air conditioning, water in the basement, things that come up that are out of our control like schedule conflicts and programming issues and weather complications on performance nights.

It’s always something. But things seem to be working out.

This weekend we celebrate this night as our 13th Sept. 29, back in the renovated theater. It’s a weekend worth celebrating.

If not for 13 years, then for a successful tour of “Songs from the Tall Grass,” for a functional and paid for building, for a new gallery space across the street at The Kaddatz Hotel (along with rehearsal, lesson, reception space, classroom space and more gallery space in the lower level of The Kaddatz).

We celebrate more than 750 members. We celebrate a community full of musicians, artists, actors, writers, film makers, storytellers and other creative and talented people sprinkled throughout our communities.

This weekend is full of the arts and I hope you will join us in this mini celebration.

The Fergus Falls Area Art Crawl (Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), Songs from the Tall Grass (Friday, Saturday and Sunday all at 7:30 p.m.), and Sizzing Finnish Fiddling with JPP out at MSCTC’s Waage Theater on Sunday at 2 p.m.

This is a community rich in the arts and it just keeps getting richer.

Next week on Oct, 1, at 7 p.m., The Tall Grass cast performs their favorite music — something completely different (admission is free will donation).

The Concert Association kicks off their season on Tuesday, Oct. 2, with The Russian State Symphony Chorus. Oct. 4, The Rose Ensemble returns to A Center for the Arts,

On Oct. 5, A Center for the Arts celebrates 25 years since incorporating as a 501(c)3 Non Profit with our Talk of the Town Fund Raiser (a fall fabulous dinner, plus an evening with music and theater and dance sprinkled through out, auctioneer Cary Aasness) at The Bigwood Event Center.

And as if that weren’t enough, well I know there’s fishing, hunting, canoeing and lots of great outdoors opportunities.

We truly do live in the land of milk and honey. Here in Otter Tail County, we have it all.

Rebecca Petersen is the director of A Center for the Arts.